Someone pinged me a message on here asking about how to donate to tackle child
sexual abuse. I'm copying my thoughts here.
I haven't done a careful review on this, but here's a few quick comments:
* Overall, I don't know of any charity which does interventions tackling child
sexual abuse, and which I know to have a robust evidence-and-impact mindset.
* Overall, I have the impression that people who have suffered from child
sexual abuse (hereafter CSA) can suffer greatly, and tackling this is
intractable. My confidence on this is medium -- I've spoken with enough
people to be confident that it's true at least some of the time, but I'm not
clear on the academic evidence.
* This seems to point in the direction of prevention instead.
* There are interventions which aim to support children to avoid being abused.
I haven't seen the evidence on this (and suspect that high quality evidence
doesn't exist). If I were to guess, I would guess that the best interventions
probably do have some impact, but that impact is limited.
* To expand on this: my intuition says that the less able the child is to
protect themselves, the more damage the CSA does. I.e. we could probably
help a confident 15-year old avoid being abused, however that child might
get different -- and, I suspect, on average less bad -- consequences than a
5 year old; but helping the 5 year old might be very intractable.
* This suggests that work to support the abuser may be more effective.
* It's likely also more neglected, since donors are typically more attracted
to helping a victim than a perpetrator.
* For at least some paedophiles, although they have sexual urges toward
children, they also have a strong desire to avoid acting on them, so
operating cooperatively with them could be somewhat more tractable.
* Unfortunately, I don't know of any org which does work in this area, and
which has a strong evidence culture. Here are some ex
Hi everyone, I am Jia, co-founder of Shamiri Health, an affordable mental health
start-up in Kenya. I am thinking of writing up something on the DALY
cost-effectiveness of investing in our company. I am very new to the community,
and I wonder if I can solicit some suggestions on what is a good framework to
use to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of impact investment into Healthcare
companies.
I think there could be two ways to go about this: 1) take an investment amount,
and using some cashflow modeling, we can figure out how many users we can reach
with that investment and calculate based on the largest user base we can reach,
with the investment amount; or 2) we can do a comparative analysis with another
more mature company in a different country, and use its % of population reach as
our "terminal impact reach". Then, use that terminal user base as the base of
the calculation.
The first approach is no doubt more conservative, but the latter, in my opinion,
is the true impact counterfactual. Without the investment, we will likely not be
able to raise enough funding since our TAM is not particularly attractive for
non-impact investors. The challenge to using the latter is the "likelihood of
success" of us carrying out the plan to reach our terminal user base. How would
you go about this "likelihood number"? I would think it varies case by case, and
one should factor in the team, the business model, the user goal, and the
market, which is closer to venture capital's model of evaluating companies. What
is the average number for impact ventures to succeed?
TLDR:
1. What is the counterfactual of impact investing? The immediate DALY that
could be averted or the terminal DALY that could be averted?
2. What is the average success rate of impact healthcare ventures to reach
their impact goal?
Humans have the right to freedom of speech, of movement and association.
Children are humans. Children in almost all countries on the Earth are required
by law to go to school for several years. In some countries (i.e. the US,
European countries, etc.) children must stay in class in specific periods of
time, they must move in the ways that their teachers approve of, they must not
talk with others for some periods of time, and if they don't answer the test
with the correct answers they are downgraded, which can affect their future
lifes. Sometimes if they refuse to go to school for long enough they could be
sent to a juvenile detention center, a psychiatric institution or given
medications.
I think that compulsory schooling violates children's human rights to freedom of
speech, movement and/or association. I think that children need to have the
right to not go to schools and opportunities for play and exploration that are
not compulsory.
What do you think of this? Am I right, or wrong on some points? Even if you
think that this isn't a pressing issue, what ideas do you have for ameliorating
this issue?
PROJECT IDEA: 'COST TO SAVE A LIFE' INTERACTIVE CALCULATOR PROMOTION
What about making and promoting a ‘how much does it cost to save a life’ quiz
and calculator.
This could be adjustable/customizable (in my country, around the world, of an
infant/child/adult, counting ‘value added life years’ etc.) … and trying to make
it go viral (or at least bacterial) as in the ‘how rich am I’
[https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i] calculator?
The case
1. People might really be interested in this… it’s super-compelling (a bit
click-baity, maybe, but the payoff is not click bait)!
2. May make some news headlines too (it’s an “easy story” for media people,
asks a question people can engage with, etc. … ’how much does it cost to
save a life? find out after the break!)
3. if people do think it’s much cheaper than it is, as some studies suggest
[https://www.givewell.org/cost-to-save-a-life], it would probably be good to
change this conception… to help us build a reality-based impact-based
evidence-based community and society of donors
4. similarly, it could get people thinking about ‘how to really measure impact’
--> consider EA-aligned evaluations more seriously
While GiveWell has a page with a lot of tech details
[https://www.givewell.org/cost-to-save-a-life], but it’s not compelling or
interactive in the way I suggest above, and I doubt they market it heavily.
GWWC probably doesn't have the design/engineering time for this (not to mention
refining this for accuracy and communication). But if someone else (UX design,
research support, IT) could do the legwork I think they might be very happy to
host it.
It could also mesh well with academic-linked research so I may have some ‘Meta
academic support ads’ funds that could work with this.
Tags/backlinks (~testing out this new feature)
@GiveWell [https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/givewell?mention=user]
@Giving What We Can
[https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/u
Rutger Bregman has just written a very nice story
[https://decorrespondent.nl/14237/hij-was-een-doorsnee-consultant-totdat-hij-de-grootste-beweging-tegen-de-grootste-doder-van-kinderen-begon/547341465-8489f0f9]
on how Rob Mather came to found AMF! Apart from a GWWC interview, I think this
is the first time anyone has told this tale in detail. There are a few good
lessons in there if you're looking to start a high-impact org.
It's in Dutch, but google translate works very well!
VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA (VOA) FUTURES FUND COMMUNITY HEALTH INCUBATOR
[https://seedspot.org/community-health-incubator/]
ACCELERATE YOUR INNOVATIVE BUSINESS SOLUTION FOR COMMUNITY HEALTH DISPARITIES.
Volunteers of America (VOA) [https://www.voa.org/futures-fund/], one of the
nation's largest and most experienced nonprofit housing, health, and human
service organizations, launched this first-of-its-kind Incubator to accelerate
social enterprises that improve quality, equity, and access to care for Medicaid
and at-risk populations. Sponsored by the Humana Foundation, the VOA Community
Health Incubator powered by SEEP SPOT supports early-stage entrepreneurship that
develops innovative products and services for equitable community health
outcomes
Leveraging VOA’s vast portfolio of assets – 16,000 employees, 400 communities,
22,000+ units of affordable housing, 15+ senior healthcare facilities, 1.5
million lives touched annually, hundreds of programs and service models – in
this 12-week program founders will benefit from the expertise and collaboration
with the VOA network, gain business training and tailored mentorship while
tackling the most intractable community health disparities. This is a fully
funded opportunity with non-diluted grants and the potential follow-on
investment of up to $200,000.
APPLY BY APRIL 28 [https://seedspot.org/futures-fund-application/]
This area of work is about improving public health, reducing poverty, increasing economic growth, and finding new interventions to help the developing world.